First paddle of the season

[Alan Gage]

The river God's must have been smiling down today. I've been watching the river intently all week hoping to go paddling this weekend but the ice seemed immoveable. This morning it looked impossible, at noon it looked very doubtful, and at 2:30 it looked open.


20150314_003 by Alan Gage, on Flickr

Just a perfect day. 60 degrees, light wind, and nothing but sunshine. A good 3 mile upstream workout and then a relaxing float back to the car listening to the birds singing and the ice popping, crunching, and tinkling. First flowers of the season are appearing on the maple trees along the river bank.

When I pulled into my driveway after the paddle I was greeted by the first of this season's red-winged blackbirds and bluebirds. What a great day!

Who's next?

Alan

 

[Holmes375]

I've been out for a week now. Weird warm spell last week came in and broke our river up in two days. Much quicker than usual, great sound and visual show as it fractured and piled up. Ice plates are so high on my side of the river you can't even see it in many places. Headin' out to the lake tomorrow as one large section of it is already open.

I'm in the water 3-4 weeks early this year and the weather forecast indicates I'll be able to continue doing so. Weird winter it has been.

 

[Canotrouge]

I've been going to the play wave to look at it(only 10 min walk from my house)it look real nice, and it si suppose to warm up this week but till then it was still -25c this morning so I'll wait till it warms up...

 

[memaquay]

Rub it in Alan! Gonna be middle of May up here me thinks!

 

[BWCA66]

No Title

First time out in southern MN. I little more that I was planning but hey, any time I can get out is better than not. See the notes on the pics for my sad story.

 

[Alan Gage]

Bummer about the gunwale, that must have been a real cold swim. I've unexpectedly gone into water in the upper 40's and was surprised how long it took to regain control of my breathing.

What caused the gunwale to break? Just old age and rot? How old?

Alan

 

[yellowcanoe]

Nope. We have lots of snow and ice. Dog chased snow machines today. It's still near zero at night F. And we are picking up more snow now. Winter won't end for a while. Below normal temps for two weeks more at least. Not uncommon for April 1 temps at night to be near zero

 

[BWCA66]

No Title

Alan, Not sure why it let loose, first look it appears there was some rot at the yoke. This is a first build by my son from 2009.

 

[Holmes375]

Its very strange here in Wyoming as of late. The ice plate jambs on the river are melting faster than I have ever seen. Winds were nasty today at 30+mph as they ushered in some incredibly warm air. I measured an air temp this afternoon of 73°F! March is typically a strong late winter month here with wet heavy snowstorms. We should still be hitting hard freeze night drops but not even close. And this has been going on for a couple weeks now. We went straight from cold winter to spring about two months early.

I'm bettin' I'll be packing the fuel stove around this summer if we dry out this far ahead of the norm.

 

[BWCA66]

Same thing here in MN, maple trees don't know what's going on either. Holmes, I hear you about it being dry this summer, could be a long fireless camping season.

 

[Momentum]

Seriously? open water? Wow. I wish it were that warm here.
I hope you enjoy it for the rest of us poor ice locked shut ins.

Momentum

 

[red langford]

I went ice fishing the last two days. Landed a beauty 40" pike through the ice. It was really warm and I got a sunburn. But paddling is so far away for me right now as ice was still over 30" thick in most places.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Yeah, we never really froze up any of the valley rivers here this winter. Yesterday was the usual "season opener" for the local paddling group, but some of us never stopped going out. We did have some cold spells, including a period when the canoe poles were icing up as soon as they got wet, but they didn't last long enough to freeze the rivers. Even the local lake didn't get as solid as it did last year. Yesterday's paddle was in 60° air. Trees are greening up and the blue herons are beginning to claim their nests.

 

[riverstrider]

Well, we got about an inch of rain on Saturday that halved our snowpack, and warmer temperatures this week could start things flowing. Our annual club's traditional "Icebreaker" trip on the Branch River is this coming Saturday, but I bet there will still be some snow and ice to deal with. At any rate, I will miss it thanks to a trip down into Louisiana for a break from the weather. Probably the first time I get out on the water will be a local poling clinic in Connecticut.

-rs

 

[snapper]

A stretch of the Susquehanna finally opened up yesterday but it would be too difficult to get to. And, without a wet or dry suit, I'm not inclined to try. We dropped back down into the single digits again last night so the ice looked good and solid again this morning as I drove into work. Hopefully it won't be too long now. There was a bit of a stream flowing over a local hydro dam yesterday afternoon so maybe the flow will begin to break up the ice. At this point, we still have a snowshoe trip on our schedule for March 28th and I'm sure we'll need them where we're going in the Catskills so winter isn't over yet; regardless of what is on the calendar for tomorrow.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper

 

[Mihun09]

We could go out and paddle the ditches and irrigation canals, they are well flooded from last weekends melt, but it will be awhile before the lakes and rivers open. Even in the city Sturgeon Creek is still solid ice.

Minuses this weekend with snow forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday, which makes sense since it is officially Spring now.